Month: March 2017

I was working my way through r/whatisthisthing when I came across this post suggesting the poster had received a $400,000 weather drone in lieu of a weightlifting bench. I assumed it was a hoax, because $400,000 piece of government technology abandoned by UPS until I got to this part of the exchange:

EDIT 2: The UPS guy on the phone had said that this had been in storage, and was something that had been lost in transit, or in some other way went undelivered. He kept saying that it was mine, and something that was intended to be delivered to me, but didn’t make it originally.

With … I knew it was real, because UPS won’t stop doing the same shit to me. We have an elderly neighbor that frequently orders from Plow & Hearth type sites that sell zip up MuuMuus and leaf camo quilted toilet paper covers and they will not stop sending us her bad choices no matter how many times we call.

I swear, this is not for comedic purposes, this is literally what happens if you call UPS customer service

US: Hello, we’ve received a package that doesn’t belong to usUPS: What is the tracking numberUS: [tracking number]UPS: It says that package was deliveredUS: It was delivered, it was delivered to the wrong houseUPS: What is your addressUS: [address]UPS: It says right here the package was delivered to that at [time]US: Right, but we didn’t order the package, we are [A ADDRESS] the package was for [B ADDRESS]UPS: Well you’ll have to speak to the business if they sent you something in errorUS: I don’t know that it was in error, but it was ordered by [B ADDRESS] not [A ADDRESS]UPS: So you haven’t received the packageUS: WE HAVE RECEIVED THE PACKAGE IT IS NOT OUR PACKAGEUPS: If you were sent the wrong item, you have to speak with the company that your orderUS: THE BOX SAYS [B ADDRESS] THIS IS [A ADDRESS] THEY ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ADDRESSESUPS: According to the tracking number, the package was delivered to [A ADDRESS] at [time]

Every time you call them they give you the run around. It’s not stupidity, or miscommunication, they will calmly talk in circles until you give up. The few times we outlasted them and got them to semi-admit the package was at the wrong address, they told us to leave the package outside and they’d come by and pick it up the next business day, but they have not once picked up a package in the several times this has happened.

And not only was it happening to me, it was happening with Puma AE Unmanned Aircraft Systems. UPS lost a $350k drone, was happy to assure this college student he was the recepient of a $350k drone, and then NOAA refused to acknowledge they lost a $350k drone, even if it meant they could get said drone back and recoup $350k.

The only reason the drone was able to be returned was because VICE covered the story and the original poster contacted them to arrange a contact with NOAA.

Bureaucracy at work, man. Each cog in the machine sloughing off responsibility onto another cog until I am left with a pile of deer antlers and polyester-viscose blend on my stoop as people try to convince me the address pf my human form, my living MuuMuu hanger if you will, is not where I am. Maybe it’s a spiritual thing. Maybe UPS is really trying to awaken us to our place the ever unfurling universal fabric, a place that is at once nowhere and everywhere. A place where all packages are undeliverable.

I forgot to mention I fell off a yoga wheel and broke my ass. I was so damn close to making it 48 hours of accident free yoga wheel ownership too. If you, like me, had never heard of a yoga wheel until you saw one on clearance on the bottom shelf at TJ Maxx and decided you had to have it because you’re holding out hope wellness can be achieved through technology, even though in your soul you know what you really need is a prison workout and to stop eating sweet and salty Chex mix with the caramel popcorn seasoning sprinkled on top at 3AM, well then the yoga wheel is a plastic circle about 10 inches in diameter that you do yoga things with. Beyond that, I’m not clear. The model was elegantly balancing it on her shin bones, but if I were to emulate this display it would result in a private Cirque de Soleil show for the sole benefit of my Build a Bear. So I went with the yoga wheel’s other stated use of deepening stretches to justify its purchase.

What I failed to realize was how much balance it required to stay on top of a light, 4″ wide plastic wheel a foot off the ground. What I did realize, but failed to heed, was that I had a bunch of shit on my floor and that probably wasn’t enough space to operate the yoga wheel. Thus, just like this summer, when I fell on my DVD player, I found myself hurtling (as much as one can hurtle 10 inches worth) towards my floor, with time freezing just long enough for me to process (but naturally not long enough to react to) the recognition ‘oh shit, I have no space to put my arms out and catch myself,’ before tipping over, slamming the same fucking hip into my closet door.

However, unlike the DVD player incident of 2016, where I immediately knew I fucked up and crawled into bed to go to sleep and avoid what would be a totally unflattering reassessment of my life, this time, I was fine. I took a ten inch bump onto a shoddy, builder-grade hollow-core door and some carpet. I didn’t so much fall as I rolled, aggressively and unconsensually.

Yet somehow, I woke up to a fucking potato sized bruise on my hip, and my poor butt cheek was bruised and that didn’t even hit anything.

Thus, the only logical conclusion is I have hemophilia. I did a presentation in Russian History on hemophilia in the Romanov dynasty, and how the transmission could be used to prove Leopold was illegitimate so I’ve always felt kind of a kinship… with hemophilia. Totally normal. Also there was a b-horror movie I watched in 9th grade where the killer was driven to kill because of the isolation they felt as a hemophiliac child, and I thought it was a pretty good twist ending and was surprised no one had exploited hemophilia before for that purpose. I’m sure the hemophilia lobby (?) is relieved, because neither of those examples is a real great reflection on hemophilia, you don’t go to a public relations office and go, yes, we would like more of that, but we don’t always get to choose what associations people have.

I Googled why people bruise easily because I don’t know if you knew, but I am a fucking doctor, and my alma mater is the Mayo Clinic website. I turned up a whole lot of nothing, besides “are you old?” “did you take ibuprofen?” and “you have hemophilia.” Hemophilia confirmed.

I don’t have hemophilia. I cut my thumb open with a pocket knife my Dad got at a trade show in 4th grade, and I survived dual attacks by a framed autographed poster of Matthew Good and a DVD player. Despite my usual reservations that anyone can confirm they are in fact, alive, it seems I probably haven’t bled to death.

BUT there is hemophilia-lite, which is not a medically accurate description. I’m sure the institute for clotting disorders is like, “go fuck yourself you Russian-sympathizing, Saw knockoff watching bitch, do you know how much we are going to have to pay a PR firm to undo your ignorance” but I maintain it is in fact hemophilia-lite if you just think of hemophilia as bleeding a lot. Which I’m sure they don’t.

Apparently your blood can be slightly wonked, various parts of it refuse to clot to varying degrees, from full on Leopold-grade hemophilia, to your blood is malfunctioning but so mildly so you don’t require treatment. That still wouldn’t explain how I managed to get a billion teeth pulled and came out unscathed, unless I have hemophilia-lite-lite, like if hemophilia was a full suite of Adobe PhotoShop and I had MS Paint. But, when I had my deviated septum fixed, and this is legitimately, one of my biggest regrets, the first time I was allowed to rinse my nose, a fucking softball sized blot clot flopped out and wiggled its way down my sink like a turtle returning to the sea. I had debated filming this event, but talked myself out of it, thinking, you idiot, it’s day surgery, nothing is going to happen. Then I got goth Flubber the blood turtle and have never forgiven myself. Having been relatively healthy and having no other symptoms I didn’t think much of it, but maybe I should have asked the ENT about a giant clump of coagulated blood that turned into a friend, like the plot of a 90s kids movie.

So I’ve got to add this to my list of medical things to get checked out. I’m already getting tested for some pre-diabetes marker, because when my doctor was going over my routine blood test results, she said everything is great but your blood sugar is high, and I said, what do I do, and she said, well sometimes it just happens with medications, and I’m just sitting their like… okay… you’re the doctor… what do I do. Then she looked at my chart, and apparently my blood sugar has been high every time. Stretching back years. I was just never informed.

Despite what falling off a yoga wheel, befriending my own blood clots and eating fake caramel powder covered Chex Mix suggests, quality healthcare tends to be a sticking point with me. But I wasn’t given the opportunity to become enraged because I was too busy fielding questions about the Trump presidency. She threw me off by quizzing me point blank asking who I voted for a second time, the only silver lining being that she probably didn’t write it on my chart the last time. Why isn’t that a violation HIPAA? Can’t you just amend something about the sanctity of the secret ballot to the end? Twice now, I’ve got to run this mental gauntlet, of like, who do I think she voted for? I didn’t have my prescriptions yet. I’m weighing race and age and economic status. Does gender beat being a businessperson? Race beats likely middle to upper middle class? Like stereotype rock paper scissors? Ironically, I’m reduced to dividing my doctor up by competing… voter attributes because I’m afraid of losing health care?

Watched The Accountant which seemed like a superhero movie without superpowers in the generally accepted sense. I genuinely wonder what the Autistic community’s opinion of this film is, and I’d they had any input (or financial stake in it.) Liked it though, bang bang shoot em up type movie (or as my Mom described “A BUM BUM BUM,”) with a bit of brooding Ben Affleck Oscar bait-y drama, and a hard left veering happy ending that also favorably compares autistic children to proteges of Dr. Xavier. Like I said, we all thoroughly enjoyed it, but I do wonder how people with Autism feel about it, because I could see it going either way.

Jordi of ItsLikelyMakeup posted a Throwback Thursday photo on Instagram a while back of her as a teenager in the go-to Scene Queen weird dolly makeup, and naturally instead of responding with what the fuck were we thinking, I was inspired and immediately wanted to recreate it.

Ahh!! I want to embed the actual IG but I can’t find it! It’s from December 2016. She posts a lot lol

Now my question is what the fuck were we using in 2006, because the above was what happened when I used what in my opinion, was an excessive amount of blush, and a coordinating lip color that seemed garishly pink. It looks downright natural. I think I own makeup that’s either of such better quality or has developed it’s own consciousness and minimalist aesthetic that it’s somehow directly/indirectly preventing me from charging up to max clown-level.